Kerry on landmark mission to land nuclear deal

US Secretary of State John Kerry left Washington on Wednesday for a date with history, hoping to seal a deal reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions for years to come

25.03.2015

(AFP) US Secretary of State John Kerry left Washington on Wednesday for a
date with history, hoping to seal a deal reining in Iran's nuclear
ambitions for years to come.

After months of closed-door negotiations, Kerry and his team was
headed once again for talks in Switzerland with Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The two nations broke diplomatic ties more than three decades ago
during a 444-day hostage taking in the American embassy in Tehran and
have remained foes ever since.

But now, negotiators from six world powers hope to meet a March 31
deadline for a landmark political agreement Iran to stop the Islamic
Republic from developing a nuclear bomb.

In return, Tehran wants a labyrinth of crippling economic sanctions
to be eased or lifted, to free up billions of dollars frozen in bank
accounts and to regain access to lucrative oil markets and global trade.

Any deal that brings Iran in from the cold will face opposition from
key US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia and from hawks in the US Congress
who see it as a naive capitulation.

But Kerry will mount a robust defense, telling an audience of senior
US diplomats before he left: "Anybody standing up in opposition to this
has an obligation to stand up and put a viable realistic alternative on
the table.

"And I have yet to see anybody do that"

An accord would cap more than a decade of painstaking negotiations
which, after protracted delays and hurdles, have gathered fresh impetus
since the 2013 election of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani.

It would also mark a legacy-making foreign policy coup in the final
years of Barack Obama's presidency, and a personal triumph for veteran
politician and diplomat, Kerry.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told CNN Wednesday that "it's a
key week" for the negotiators who aim to increase the so-called
"breakout time" for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon to about a year.

"The fact is, without these negotiations Iran was moving towards a
nuclear weapon," Psaki said, saying opponents of the deal were not
offering any other solutions.

"What we're doing here is extending the period of time giving us more
time, giving the international community more time to track and watch
what they're doing."

Opposition gathers steam

As the clock has ticked down to Tuesday's deadline, simmering tensions with opponents of a deal have reached boiling point.

And Obama's Republican foes in Congress are lining up to vote on new Iran sanctions next month, should diplomacy fail.

Washington has also found itself at odds with allies like France,
wary that Obama's administration may be making too many concessions in
its haste to reach an agreement.

At best, opponents argue the deal will only delay Iranian nuclear
ambitions for a decade or so. At worst, they say, the country's leaders
will be able to covertly move ahead with developing a nuclear weapon.

Kerry's return to Lausanne to resume the talks with Zarif on Thursday
will only fuel speculation that now an agreement is within sight in the
coming days.

Other foreign ministers from the so-called P5+1 group -- Britain,
China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- are reportedly
expected to arrive in the lakeside Swiss town over the weekend.

The complex deal on the table would likely involve Iran reducing its
nuclear activities, allowing strict, and perhaps even unannounced UN
inspections, while mothballing sophisticated equipment needed to enrich
uranium.

Iran has always denied seeking a nuclear weapon, and says its atomic energy program is purely for civilian purposes.